Published after Virgil's death in 19 BC and established as Rome's national poem, The Aeneid is the epic tale of Aeneas, who flees the sack of Troy (in the 12th or 11th century BC) and travels to Italy, eventually carving out a foothold for future Romans. While defining and celebrating what it means to be Roman, The Aeneid confronts, with bleak pathos, the tragedy inherent in Rome's destiny. This classic translation by John Dryden, the foremost man of letters in 17th-century England, was deemed by Alexander Pope to be "the most noble and spirited translation I know in any language."